Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Scott A Fudally

Charbel Khawand

Robert D Young

Wallace Paul Montgomery

Sharon Drasnin

Tejas Mistry

Murali Ravirala

Vassili I Nikolaev

A user interface for power management of a mobile communications device is described. In an implementation, power consumption used in performance of a plurality of tasks is monitored by a mobile communications device. A determination is made as to an amount of power that remains in a battery of the mobile communications device. A user interface is displayed on a display device of the mobile communications device that describes an amount of time each of the plurality of tasks may be performed based on the determined amount of power that remains in the battery.

Power management of a mobile communications device

A firmware update system is described that collectively handles secure firmware updates for hardware resources in a defined and consistent manner. The firmware update system may be configured to manage at least some firmware updates in a pre-boot environment (e.g., before an operating system is loaded). By doing so, the firmware update system exercises control over the updates and reduce entry points exposed to attackers. In one approach, update states are defined for hardware resources that are managed by the firmware update system. In a pre-boot environment, the update states for the managed hardware resources are set to enable firmware updates. The firmware update system may then detect and apply firmware updates available for the managed hardware resources. Update states may be set to disable before loading the operating so that firmware updates for managed resources are disabled outside of the secure pre-boot environment.

Secure firmware updates

Device enumeration support techniques are described for busses that do not natively support enumeration. In one or more embodiments, an intermediate controller of a computing device is configured to interconnect and manage various hardware devices associated with the computing device. The intermediate controller may detect connection and disconnection of hardware devices in association with one or more communication busses employed by the computing device. In response to such detection, the intermediate controller may send appropriate notifications to an operating system to alert the operating system when hardware devices come and go. This enables the operating system to enumerate and denumerate hardware devices within a device configuration and power management system implemented by the operating system that facilitates interaction with the hardware devices through corresponding representations.

Device enumeration support method for computing devices that does not natively support device enumeration

Data from storage devices is stored in a read cache, having a read cache size, and a write cache, having a write cache size. The read cache and the write cache are separate caches. Cache configuration of the read cache and the write cache are automatically and dynamically adjusted based, at least in part, upon cache performance parameters. Cache performance parameters include one or more of preference scores, frequency of read and write operations, read and write performance of a storage device, localization information, and contiguous read and write performance. Dynamic cache configuration includes one or more of adjusting read cache size and/or write cache size and adjusting read cache block size and/or write cache block size.

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Duvall, WA, United States of America

Scott A Fudally